Frustrated with how long it is taking to meet great people on Pinterest I decided to gamify Pinterest. Can you tell a cool complete story in 5 pins or less? Then you may be the King, Queen or Best Business on Pinterest.

Curating curation topic on Scoop.it

Content curation tools are designed to assist the process of searching, collating and sharing existing content. Content curation differs from simple content aggregation in that curators screen for the most relevant content, and often edit or comment it. By curating content on a topic close to them, brands can position themselves as a go-to expert on that topic and embed their communication into the richer context of external content sources.

The most popular category is Social (content) Curation. Social Curation enables users to clip and publically share content (mostly pictures, graphics and video) in the form of attractive personalized mood boards or microblogs (typical of Pinterest, Bundlr).

A more specialized form of Social content curation helps users turn twitter feeds into threaded stories (Storify, Dashter).

We can expect much of the Pinterest-style social curation to turn into Shopping Curation à la OpenSky.

We can also expect the debate about content curation and copyright infringment to continue to rage. Attribution to the original source should be a fundamental requirement of Content Curation. But it can be difficult when content is re-curated (for example re-"pinned") again and again. Scoop.it is one of the best tools in terms of facilitating content attribution.

"As more and more companies have gone all-in on content, they’ve flooded their channels with so much information that it’s hard for consumers to differentiate one brand’s information from another – let alone engage with all of them. " So true! There is so much old-school SEO-optimized keyword soup on the web, it's disgusting...

It’s a beautiful writing experience, a beautiful reading experience, and an appealing playground for adventurous marketers looking for new ways to associate their brand with great content. It’s a…

Therese Torris's insight:

I have mixed feelings about medium because it can be a real time sucker. I receive my personalized Medium newsletter every day and consciously try to avoid doing more than glancing at it. But one cannot ignore that it's becoming huge as a content marketing tool

The first step to getting a leg up on the competition is to have a solid, smart content marketing plan in place. If you're having trouble planning for the upcoming year or need some fresh ideas to include in your plan, read on.

In this post, we'll dive into why your business needs a content marketing plan and the exact steps you will need to take to create one....

I love this title which likens financial services (FS) to alcohol and cannabis. Seems to me that FS are less dispensable that the latter, but less pleasant for consumers, and often with worse secondary effects.

Content is critical for gaining online exposure -- in fact, it’s the only thing that matters. Even the ugliest websites can receive vast amounts of traffic if the content is fantastic and the promotion is effective. It’s also impossible to think about digital marketing these days without mentioning Google, Yahoo and Bing. Without high-quality content optimized for specific keywords, you aren’t going to see any noticeable rankings.

Overall, content should be a priority for companies hoping to bring in online traffic, but a lot of businesses are still making the same mistakes.

Content marketers, turn your great content into video, infographics and a Slideshare. Neil Patel says "I took existing blog posts and easily turned them into 2- and 3-minute videos. I broke the pieces down into digestible outlines and turned them into actionable infographics and presentations."

The assumption of inbound marketing is that everything is measurable and trackable in a tidy funnel. But many things that are important in marketing are not measurable – and those that are trackable tend to incorporate bad or incomplete data.

Product marketers took an inbound marketing course, grew pretentious man buns, and rebranded themselves as “growth hackers”. They thought that they could analyse marketing data to determine the precise “buyer journey” and optimise every step along the way.

But human brains do not work that way. Straight lines do not exist in marketing. If you think that our minds process everything linearly and logically, just remember your dreams from last night. As DDB New Zealand stated in the New Zealand Herald earlier this year, the latest research shows that companies need to make brands famous with distinctive advertising and publicity, remember that irrational feelings are more important than logical thoughts, and focus on long-term strategy rather than short-term results.

There is more to a powerful social media strategy than posting content and hoping for the best. Take this approach, and you'll be disappointed with the results more times than not. Instead, making noise on social media comes down to two things:Posting compelling and unique contentDoing anything and everything you can to boost engagement
Via Brian Yanish - MarketingHits.com

Content marketing offers better engagement, better conversions, and usually costs less than other forms of marketing. Besides, with a constantly increasing number of ad-blocker software users across the globe, content marketing becomes the only way to get a message through with assurance.

So, this year too, brands will need to focus more on content marketing. The following 5 content marketing trends will help you reap the maximum benefits out of your content marketing strategy in 2017....

Sharing your scoops to your social media accounts is a must to distribute your curated content. Not only will it drive traffic and leads through your content, but it will help show your expertise with your followers.

Integrating your curated content to your website or blog will allow you to increase your website visitors’ engagement, boost SEO and acquire new visitors. By redirecting your social media traffic to your website, Scoop.it will also help you generate more qualified traffic and leads from your curation work.

Distributing your curated content through a newsletter is a great way to nurture and engage your email subscribers will developing your traffic and visibility.
Creating engaging newsletters with your curated content is really easy.